Month: November 2015

November – eleven months of blogging, experimenting and trying new skills and practicing old ones. A boudoir session, themed photo shoots, trips, working with other professionals and more … what a month!

I can not believe how fast this year has gone… how many opportunities I have had and how many new things I have yet to try and have only a month left to go…. Wow Continue reading →

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I spent an amazing day in a photo studio with 2 members of my local camera club watching them work. I wanted to learn more about lighting and using a studio, and they kindly offered me the opportunity to come along, watch what goes into the starting blocks of creating their award winning images, they put together – they are not just photographers, they are contemporary artists and an amazing amount of thought and creativity goes into the images they put together.

Their photos are amazing – and award winning – they recently got presented with a Photographic Society of American Best of Show Gold Award in the Bregenz salon in Austria – and all their portrait shots tell a story. Please visit their web site – Quality Pixels or follow them of Qualify Pixels Photography on facebook to see some of their stunning work.

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Another 1st Christmas photo shoot and another very enthusiastic mum who brought along a variety of different outfits so that we could create a variety of different photos. I never realised before how important it is for outfit changes to add variety into the photos. Continue reading →

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A wander in the New Forest with my canon 24-70mm lens on my crop sensor camera. The 24-70mm lens from what I have read online is an ideal walk around lens on a full frame camera – but for me it has a focal range 38.4mm- 112mm.

I have noticed recently that I am not using this lens enough – I now have four favorite lens, and this is number 4… so today I put on my camera and went to explore, with the idea I would capture some Autumn landscapes.

Wilverly view in November in the New Forest

ISO800 was chosen today as the skies were overcast and I wanted to make sure I had fast enough shutter speed for my lens, above I used F8 and 1/200sec focusing on the heather in the foreground. I liked the muted tones of the heather and the blue misty background in comparison to the gorse – which brings sunshine to the heathland in winter.

The New Forest Skies

This photo totally breaks the rule of thirds, putting the trees on the horizon so close to the bottom of the frame – but I just loved the texture in the sky. ISO800, F8, 1/200sec

View from Wilverly walk

The winding path through the heather caught my eye and leads you through the image. ISO800, F8, 1/800 sec – not a person in sight and it makes me realise how lucky I am to have this location on my doorstep – I don’t think I will ever tire of it!

A stream in the New Forest National Park

I got down low to fill the frame with the forest steam – the water in the forest is often very dark. ISO800, F9, 1/250sec.

Autumn view in the New Forest woods.

Autumn seems to have passed through the New Forest quickly this year, there are lots of leaves down now and bare trees. ISO800, F9, 1/160sec

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If I want to get more creative I really need some backgrounds and textures … so one of those things that I have been putting off doing is photographing smoke … so that is today’s challenge. Continue reading →

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We had a great speaker at camera club this week – Vicki Boulter who is a graphic artist and who amazing images which are very different from the regular portraits that we normally see. Vicki is a graphic designer by training… the same as me and she really inspired me to try something different. Continue reading →

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Dark evenings and the festive season approaching, so I thought I would pop along to the Garden of Lights and capture an abstract view of pods that have been generated to encourage evening visitors to the city centre.

Night time photography without a tripod is a challenge, longer exposure times I needed but for these images I wanted the ambient lighting to remain dark, and the lights of the installations was changing often, so to keep shutter speeds low I opted for a shallow aperture and a high ISO. Continue reading →